The WBG Archives Oral History Program captures personal recollections of interviewees. The opinions, findings, interpretations, and conclusions expressed in these oral histories do not reflect official views or policy of the World Bank Group, its Executive Directors, or the governments they represent. The World Bank Group is not responsible for the accuracy of the information included in the interview transcripts and/or recordings.
Oral History
Explore transcripts of oral history interviews on the World Bank Group from its post-Bretton Woods beginnings to the present day.
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Featured Transcripts
Enduring Questions: Historical Perspectives on Lasting Development Challenges
This featured set of transcripts explores how former World Bank Group staff and leaders approached challenges that remain central today: creating jobs, mobilizing private investment, managing debt, responding to environmental risks, and harnessing new technologies. These reflections reveal how development thinking has evolved, and how much of it endures, offering historical perspectives on issues shaping discussions at the 2026 Annual Meetings.
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Stern was at the center of the Bank's response to the 1980s debt crisis, shaping structural adjustment programs and forging the institution's working relationship with the IMF. His account offers a frank insider perspective on how crisis drove cooperation, and at what cost.
Bank Tenure: 1972 - 1995 -
From the Bank's Employment Division through public finance, Africa operations, and development policy leadership, Squire traces how the institution's approach to poverty shifted, and why broad growth strategies replaced targeted labor interventions as the preferred path to better jobs.
Bank Tenure: 1972 - 2002 -
Rischard helped architect the Bank's pivot to private capital, from inventing debt restructuring techniques that inspired Brady Bonds, to building the Vice Presidency for Private Sector Development. He offers a firsthand account of how private investment moved from the margin to the mainstream.
Bank Tenure: 1975 - 2005 -
During a decisive decade as a director of the Bank’s Environment Department, El-Ashry fought for environmental assessment guidelines despite internal resistance and led the Bank’s delegation at the 1992 Rio Earth Summit. His account traces how ecological risk became embedded in the development agenda.
Bank Tenure: 1991 - 2003 -
Laporte led the Bank's knowledge management and e-learning initiatives from the late 1990s, building platforms like the Global Development Learning Network and the e-Institute. His account reveals the persistent gap between institutional ambition and operational reality in harnessing technology for development.
Bank Tenure: 1981-2013